I just got an email from the Sony store listing their top 10 so I thought I’d set out the Kindle top 10, the Fictionwise top 10 and the Sony top 10 to see how they compare. WordPress doesn’t let me do tables or tabs, so I’ll just list them:
Kindle
1. The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
2. The Templar Legacy: A Novel, Steve Berry
3. Giving Chase, Lauren Dane
4. The Keeper, Sarah Langan
5. The Demon Awakens, R. A. Salvatore
6. The Mark, Jason Pinter
7. The Naked Gospel: Truth You May Never Hear in Church, Andrew Farley
8. Starfist: First to Fight, David Sherman
9. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
10. A Touch of Dead, Charlaine Harris
Sony
1. The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
2. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
3. Other Than Murder, John Lutz
4. The Murder of King Tut, James Patterson
5. Rough Country, John Sandford
6. Razor Sharp, Fern Michaels
7. Unhallowed Ground, Heather Graham
8. Alex Cross’s Trial, James Patterson
9. An Echo in the Bone, Diana Gabaldon
10. Hot for the Holidays, Lora Leigh
Fictionwise
1. The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
2. To Sir Phillip with Love: The Epilogue II, Julia Quinn
3. The Renegade Hunger, Lynsay Sands
4. An Echo in the Bone: A Novel, Diana Gabaldon
5. Hot for the Holidays, Lora Leigh
6. Wicked All Day, Liz Carlyle
7. Secret Sanction, Brian Haig
8. Dark Slayer, Christine Feehan
9. Hael’s Fury (Sector Guard 3), Viola Grace
10. Bed of Roses, Nora Roberts
8 out of 10 on the Amazon list are currently listed as free. Only The Lost Symbol and A Touch of Dead are books customers have to buy. Of course, offers change, and the books might not always be free.
Interesting. The Amazon list seems the most ‘mainstream’ of the three. The Sony list is dominated by mystery and suspense, and the Fictionwise list is overwhelmingly romance…
… which seems to confirm the argument that the sort of books that people buy as e-books are the sort of books they would buy in a bookshop even if they were shrink-wrapped.
You are looking at three basically different market segments. Kindle is mainstream or “free” because its audience base skews older and is very price-sensitive.
Sony’s audience is heavily male and more tech-savvy (these are the same guys now on their second or third big screen tv). The Fictionwise audience skews slightly younger than the other two; another factor is that Fictionwise “rebates” selected titles as high a 100%, and quite a few of the top ranking titles are those that are free currently or in recent past.
So to riff on what Martin says above, you’re looking at three very distinct “bookshops” that have, over the years, cultivated a specific clientele, and sell to that audience.
— Mia Amato
I would just note that the The Naked Gospel is currently free on the Kindle, likely causing its current popularity.